Comment by MichaelRo
10 hours ago
My first phone in the early 80s was a hand-cranked magneto phone like this: https://images.okr.ro/serve/product/572e8fdd848db2d3b02d36d2...
Connected by 12Km of telephone wire to a manual switchboard where an operator would pick my call and connect wires for local or long distance: https://alexandrone.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02...
Yes, in the early 80s, Romania was still using 1950s technology. And with only 3 telephones in the village, it was a big deal to have one.
Then at the end of the 80s moved to a nearby town and was amazed at how much more convenient a rotary dial phone is.
And with the unappreciated feature that the Securitate's people listening in could always be counted on to be available for consult in case you forgot a detail discussed in a call...
My ex-wife grew up in a small town in 1970s Francoist Spain, so I've heard these types of stories before. (Though she didn't have to crank her phone!!)
She actually had two phone lines in her house: One for employees of Repsol - the national oil company - which didn't have a dial and used a central operator, and another with a dial to make regular calls. It created a sort of 1970s "blue bubble" effect because the company line was free to use. Friends whose family also worked for the company were sort of privileged as a result.
Visiting my kid's grandparents in the late 2000s was a blast from the past as they still had the same pink phone in the living room they had had since forever (it may have even been a rotary phone, I can't remember). My son at the time was honestly perplexed at the whole idea of a landline.